born in 1901, rudi studied the semitic, turkish and persian languages during the period 1920 to 1924. he studied at the university of tuebingen and graduated at the hands of the german orientalist, whitman.

he spent two years in cairo (1925-1926) during which his initial interest was popular literature; however, later his attention turned to the arabic language and islamic studies, especially the noble quran. he assumed many scientific posts including, teacher at tuebingen university and professor at heidelberg university, but later he returned to tuebingen as a professor of arabic and islamic studies during the period 1951 to 1968.

one of his most important books is "muhammad and the quran". he translated the meanings of the noble quran into the german language and wrote a book about the quran entitled "the quran: a comment and an index".

christian influence

bart spoke about christian influence saying:

“during the era of prophet muhammad in makka, people’s knowledge of christianity was limited and incomplete and the arab christians were going in the wrong direction with their beliefs. therefore, there was room for the emergence of deviant heterodox views. had it not been for that, allah’s messenger (peace be upon him) would not have been aware of such views which deny the crucifixion of jesus, and others including the theory of the trinity; that it does not mean the father, the son and the holy ghost, but rather, it refers to god, jesus and mary.

the knowledge that allah’s messenger (peace be upon him) could gather about the life of jesus and his influence was limited. on the other hand, muhammad (peace be upon him) had a great deal of knowledge about the birth of jesus and his mother mary.”

obviously, what rudi wanted to say is that the information mentioned in the quran about jesus, his mother and christianity, was the available widespread information at that time even though it might be limited or incorrect. according to him, this means that muhammad (peace be upon him) is the author of the quran.

questioning the validity of the noble quran

rudy says at the beginning of his german translation of the noble quran, as if responding to his fellows who were questioning the validity of the quran: “we do not have any reason to believe that there is any verse in the noble quran that was not made (forged) by muhammad (peace be upon him).” he continues with his suspicion, saying that the language of the quran certainly does not differ from the language of secular literature.

reply to this suspicion

it is well-known that the quranic language is exclusive. the fluency and eloquence of the arabs, who were famous for both, fell short of simulating its language.

the revelation challenged them to come up with even one verse like the quran but they failed to meet this challenge which still exists and will continue to do so until judgment day.

some of them tried to simulate the language of the quran and we shall mention here some of these attempts.

the liar musailamah said: “oh frog daughter of frogs, what a good croak you have. you do not prevent one who wants to drink from drinking and you do not make the water turbid. stay in the ground until the bat brings you the certain news. we possess half of the earth and quraish has the other half, but quraish are an invading nation.”

he also said: “have you not seen what god had made of the pregnant woman. he made her give birth to a human being from among the guts and intestines.” furthermore, he said: “the elephant, what do you know of the elephant?, it has a long trunk.” also: “croak as you always do, you never reach the water and you do not stop others from drinking”. al-nadr, son of al-harith, said: “oh those who cultivate and those who reap and those who grind and those who knead and those who bake bread.”

the muslims of earlier times understood the value of the opposition of musailamah and al nadr so their belief in the noble quran was strengthened. the son of mokafa’ wanted to oppose the quran but he realized that he was incapable of doing so, therefore, he said: “i bear witness that this quran cannot be opposed and is not the words of humans.”

the italian scholar, gabrielli, said: “the irresponsible statements of some orientalists that muhammad is the author of the quran are void of truth. they are merely unsuccessful attempts to undermine the religion and the prophet.”

if the quran was not superior they would have been able to come up with something that might have opposed it. since they were not able to do so, it was obvious they had discovered that it is far beyond their rhymes and methods of composition, so their ambition dissipated.